1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a lighting equipment to be used in a home, an office, a shop or the like. More particularly, the invention relates to a light control type LED lighting equipment driving LEDs with receiving power from an alternating current power source for serving as a light source.
2. Description of the Related Art
Since high-intensity blue LEDs have been put into practice, blue LEDs, red LEDs and green LEDs are aggregatedly mounted for forming a general lighting equipment similarly to a fluorescent lamp, a filament lamp and so forth. A lighting equipment employing LED aggregate lamps is particularly advantageous in comparison with existing fluorescent lamp, filament lamp and so forth for long life time and low power consumption. One of the advantages of the LED lamp is capability of freely varying color of a light emitted therefrom. Namely, by forming the lamp by aggregating LEDs of three primary colors and constructing a circuit for independently varying luminance of respective LED groups of three primary colors, a color tone of the light can be varied in a wide range.
In the lighting equipment with the LED aggregate lamp, a blue color adjusting knob variably adjusting luminance of the blue LEDs, a red color adjusting knob variably adjusting luminance of the red LEDs and a green color adjusting knob variably adjusting luminance of the green LEDs are provided. In this case, by variably operating the three adjusting knobs, the color tone of the light can be varied arbitrarily.
Usability of the light adjusting type lighting equipment is now considered. Consideration is given for the case where the light adjusting type lighting equipment is used in a supermarket for lighting goods/articles in the store. An owner or manager of the shop may attempt to promote willingness to buy of the customer by skillfully using sense of color given by the light from the equipment to a human. Therefore, for example, appropriate light may be employed which will match colors of respective goods/articles, such as by lighting a meet with reddish white color, by lighting a vegetable with bluish white color. However, it is difficult to obtain desired delicate color tone by combination of three primary colors such as xe2x80x9creddish white colorxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cbluish white colorxe2x80x9d and so forth, with three adjusting knobs. The reason is that patterns of combination by three adjusting knobs are present in infinite number. This is equally applicable as lighting for a living room at home, mood lighting in a shop of bar, club or the like.
On the other hand, by using high level concept, such as color difference and so forth, it has been considered to reduce number of adjusting knobs. However, such a concept as xe2x80x9ccolor differencexe2x80x9d is too technical for general users to understand real feeling in light adjustment. It is further difficult to reproduce the same condition in light adjustment.
On the other hand, there is a system, in which several tones are preliminarily prepared and a desired tone is appropriately selected by the user. However, sense of color in the provided tone is discrete and cannot express delicate tone.
Furthermore, an operation input portion, such as adjusting knobs for respective lighting colors are often secured on a wall or the like to degrade convenience in adjustment. It would be desirable to adjust the lighting color in the sense as varying television channel by remote control operation.
The present invention has been worked out for solving the shortcoming in the prior art. Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a LED lighting equipment which can be simply perform lighting control of the light by any body and can obtain wide variety of tones in wide range by merely operating one operation knob on a remote controller variably.
According to one aspect of the present invention, a light control type LED lighting equipment comprises:
a LED aggregate lamp portion, in which a first color LED group, a second color LED group and a third color LED group are included;
an alternating current power connecting portion for being connected to a power source;
a power source converting portion for rectifying an alternating current power received through the alternating current power connecting portion;
a first color drive circuit, a second color drive circuit and a third color drive circuit for supplying power for respective of the first color LED group, the second color LED group and the third color LED group by an output of the power source converting portion so as to illuminate the LED groups;
control input generating means for generating one series of control input signal, a value of the control input signal increasing or decreasing within a predetermined range in response to operation by a user;
control output generating means for generating a combination of first color luminance data, a second color luminance data and a third color luminance data corresponding to a value of the control input signal according to a predetermined characteristics; and
individual power control means for independently controlling the first color drive circuit, the second color drive circuit and the third color drive circuit on the basis of the first color luminance data, the second color luminance data and the third color luminance data for varying power supply amount for the first LED group, the second LED group and the third LED group,
a color tone of the LED aggregate lamp portion being varied continuously depending on the value of the control input signal according to a predetermined primary curve set in a chromaticity coordinate.
The light control type LED lighting equipment may further comprises:
second control input generating means for generating one series of second control signal, a value of the second signal increasing or decreasing within a predetermined range by operation of the user;
common power control means for uniformly varying power supply amount for the first color LED group, the second color LED group and the third color LED group by uniformly increasing or decreasing amount of current value of the first color drive circuit, the second color drive circuit and the third color drive circuit depending upon a value of the second control input signal,
the hue of the LED aggregate lamp substantially maintained while brightness of the lighting is varied.
The first color drive circuit, the second color drive circuit and the third color drive circuit may be constant current type, and the individual power control means individually varies power supply amount for the first color LED group, the second color LED group and the third color LED group by a pulse width modulation method.
The light control type LED lighting equipment may further comprises:
second control input generating means for generating one series of second control signal, a value of the second control signal increasing or decreasing within a predetermined range by operation of the user;
common power control means for uniformly varying power supply amount for the first color LED group, the second color LED group and the third color LED group by varying output from the power source converting portion depending upon a value of the second control input signal,
the hue of the LED aggregate lamp substantially maintained while brightness of the lighting is varied.
The LED aggregate lamp portion, the alternating current power connecting portion, the power source converting portion, the first color drive circuit, the second color drive circuit, the third color drive circuit, the control output generating means including a control signal receiving portion and the individual power control means are mounted on the lighting equipment main body, the control input generating means including a control signal transmitting portion is mounted on a remote controller separated from the main body, the control signal transmitting portion being connected to the control signal receiving portion through a ratio transmission line.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a light control type LED lighting equipment comprises:
a LED aggregate lamp portion, in which a first color LED group, a second color LED group and a third color LED group are included;
a first color drive circuit, a second color drive circuit and a third color drive circuit for supplying power for respective of the first color LED group, the second color LED group and the third color LED group so as to illuminating the LED groups;
control input generating means for generating one series of control input signal, a value of the control input signal increasing or decreasing within a predetermined range in response to operation by a user;
control output generating means for generating a combination of first color luminance data, a second color luminance data and a third color luminance data corresponding to a value of the control input signal according to a predetermined primary curve set in a chromaticity coordinate; and
individual power control means for independently controlling the first color drive circuit, the second color drive circuit and the third color drive circuit on the basis of the first color luminance data, the second color luminance data and the third color luminance data for varying power supply amount for the first LED group, the second LED group and the third LED group,
wherein a color tone of the LED aggregate lamp portion being varied continuously depending on the value of the control input signal.